Famous Family History Mao Tse-Tung Children

About the family of famous Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung, history of his sons and daughters.

MAO TSE-TUNG (1893-1976),

Chinese political leader

His Fruits: A strong ethic in Chinese communism regards family details of its leaders not so much secret as unimportant. Thus information about Mao's children is vague and conflicting. The most reliable sources indicate that he fathered seven to ten children by three wives. He abandoned several daughters in infancy, and he maintained close relations with none of his adult children. Pye suggests that Mao rejected the parental role for himself because of his ironic success in manipulating his own father. He had "learned early that his father could not 'win,' and therefore, psychologically, he was incapable of ever allowing himself to be trapped into the responsibilities of a father." The breakdown of the Chinese filial system is nowhere better exemplified than in Mao's own domestic life.

Yang K'ai-hui (?-1930), whom he married about 1920, probably bore three sons. After her execution by Kuomintang troops, sons Mao An-ying (1922?-1950) and Mao An-ch'ing (1924?- ) were sent to Russia for schooling. There they learned to read and write Chinese. Mao An-ying, given the name Sergei, later became a Russian interpreter in China, went with Chinese forces to Korea, and was killed there either during an American bombing raid or in a plane crash. Mao An-ch'ing, renamed Nikolai in Russia, was institutionalized for severe mental problems and reportedly is still confined in a mental institution in Darien, Manchuria. Mao An-lung (1926?-?), of hypothetical existence, disappeared after his mother's arrest and was presumably adopted by another family.

By Ho Tzu-chen (1910?-?), Mao fathered five daughters, most of whom were left with peasant families before and during the Long March of 1934-1935. Her successor at the chairman's side accused her of viciously abusing Mao's sons during the years prior to her confinement in a Russian mental hospital.

Deposed from China's ruling faction in 1976, Chiang Ch'ing (1914- ), former actress and Mao's last wife, bore two daughters. Li Na, also known as Hsiao Li, went to Peking University, became a historian and journalist, and now shares her mother's obscure disgrace somewhere in China. Whereabouts of Li Min, another daughter, are equally mysterious.